


something which is worth the whole

by spacenarwhal



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Team as Family, Trapped In Elevator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 00:23:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9940490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacenarwhal/pseuds/spacenarwhal
Summary: Saw always warned her of this, of loyalty to something other than the cause. Perhaps that is why he left her behind, the only kindness he knew how to spare her. War does not breed soft people, this much is true for Cassian and Jyn. They’ve gone without it long enough not to miss it, but loyalty runs deep in them both. There will always be danger in this brand of devotion.[Cassian and Jyn after Scarif. Another fight gone south. Another turbolift.]





	

**Author's Note:**

> That elevator scene haunts me y'all.

It almost feels familiar. 

Another fight. Another turbolift. Another silence that hangs heavy and overripe between them. 

For two people who deal their words as sparingly as they do, they seem to excel at filling the spaces around one another with all the things they don’t say. _Bodhi’s right_ , Jyn thinks, the thought slippery and half-hysteric, _we do deserve each other._

This lift’s smaller but the distance between them feels leagues and leagues bigger, Cassian’s back to her, shoulders tense and rigid to look at. Jyn would sigh but her ribs pinch around her lungs. It isn’t worth the bother.

The taste of blood in her mouth _is_ the same, metallic and hot. It makes her throat itch. “So much for keeping a low profile.” Jyn chokes, her weak attempt at chuckling cut short by the cough that tears its way out of her chest. She wonders if the smoke from the fire they left behind them on the upper levels of the compound has caught up with them here, in this stalled turbolift where they’re trapped like hutched animals. She upsets the arm she’s supposed to be keeping still with her coughing and there's a flare of panic at the thought of choking on smoke until she can’t breathe, of Cassian gagging on the oily black fumes before dropping. Jyn hisses through clenched teeth, tries to brace it against her chest even as it heaves. The kyber crystal under her shift rubs against her knuckles. She focuses on the pain to clear out the panic. 

Black dots thick as a swarm of pinch flies come in and out of focus at the edges of her vision, dim the absurdly bright lights of the turbolift. Truly the only saving grace of this pesky concussion. Jyn closes her eyes and forgets for a moment how to open them. It doesn’t worry her as much it should. She licks blood off the back of her bottom lip, revives the sluggish, pulsing heat in the wound. 

“Jyn.” He says, voice low but urgent, and she forces her eyes open, squints through the too-bright lights to look at him. Her eyes slip past him against her will, toward the mess of wires spilling out of the control panel in the wall and then back to the vibroblade still clutched in Cassian’s hand. She wishes she could remember what he was doing. There’s soot and sweat and determination smeared across his brow and Jyn wants to be petty. She wishes she could make him feel as small as he made her feel when he originally protested her accompanying the team on this mission, but her tongue won’t cooperate, the whole world’s gone fuzzy and sour like blue milk left to spoil. She hates head wounds. And Stormtroopers. And rebellions and lifts and silence and the taste of blood in her mouth.

Cassian comes towards her, crouches low so that they’re almost eye level. Jyn catches sight of his bloodied palms, the grey duracrete dust in his dark hair. The blast took them both down, though it was Jyn who hit the wall, who fell like a ragdoll and lay breathless and too still for who knows how long, cost them precious time, Jyn for whom the world dips and bows underfoot.

”Eyes open Sergeant Erso.” He says, and she doesn’t know what she expected, maybe more of the cool detached composure that stared her down back at the rebel base, or the cold furious edge of a rebuke—“You can’t be so reckless anymore Jyn—” “It’s my life to risk isn’t it?” “It isn’t just your life on the line anymore. Or don’t you remember we’re supposed to be a team?”—but Cassian’s voice is soft and his fingertips careful where they brush over her jaw, tip her head gently upward. The light stings her eyes. “Just a little longer, Jyn.” He adds, her name feels as intimate as a touch when he says it, and Jyn’s skin is cold and hot at unpredictable intervals across her body. This is why protocol exists. Why losses have to be cut. She blinks, pulls herself back from the edge of something vast and incomprehensible as hope. She watches the curve of Cassian’s mouth as he speaks. “The others know where we are. They’ll be on their way soon. Just,” his thumb brushes over her cheek. “Just hang on. Alright?” His mouth pinches and the heat trapped behind her eyes is clawing to get out, but she can’t, presses it back like she digs her teeth into her cheek. 

This is what they don’t talk about. How Jyn never feels less alone then when he touches her—and he does touch her. His hand at her elbow and his palm gentle against the small of her back and his fingertips on the beating pulse in her wrist—and Jyn doesn’t know how to repay him other than to throw herself into the thick of battle at his side and fight with every scrap of strength inside her. She thinks that’s what team work is, though she can’t be sure. (He wanted her to stay behind. But the bomb would have malfunctioned all the same and blown seconds too early and he would have been alone, buried in rubble for ‘troopers to dig out. And then what? Then—)

Jyn’s eyes close. His thumb presses down a little more firmly into her cheek. She opens them to glare at him, focuses on the dried blood on the left side of his chin, dark and matted in his beard. 

“Bet you wish you’d stayed now.” He says, mouth half-quirked in something too small and short-lived to be a smile.

Oh. She hates him. Anger is an iron-willed fist squeezing around her stomach. Cassian’s eyes drop from hers, glance at her immobilized arm, flick back up the wound on her head which she thinks has finally stopped bleeding. His fingers are still pressed against her face. It’s terrible, how much love and hate have in common. Jyn’s anger loosens on an exhale, she keeps her eyes fixed on his face as best she can, his worried eyes. “And miss this?” She mumbles, her tongue thick and uncooperative behind her blood-slick teeth. “Never.” Cassian breathes out a muted laugh, and overhead the lift’s gears grind, like an archaic blade run over a whet stone. The entire turbolift jerks. (Maybe they are destined to die together. One way or another.) Cassian fixes her with a cutting look, his calloused fingers push hair from her face with a careful swipe before he stands, vibroblade sheathed and blaster in hand again. “There are worse ways to go, don’t you think?” He asks simply, causes blood to bloom in hot patches across her cheeks. 

_Yes_ , she thinks, _there are worse ways to live too_. 

Cassian doesn’t wait for her answer, shifts on his feet to stand between her and the sealed doors. Another metallic groan and the lift shudders in place. She loosens one of her truncheons with half-numb fingers, grip tight around the handle. For all the buzzing static in her ears, she still knows she’s useless as she is, plopped in this corner like a ragdoll, disoriented and melancholic.

She grits her teeth and tries to push herself to her feet. “Cassian.” She bites, unable to get enough leverage to rise. It takes more than she can put into words to ask him to help her, but her legs tremble and her arm shakes as her fingers clench around the rail just overhead. He looks like he wants to protest, order her still, but he just sets his mouth more firmly, holsters his blaster and reaches for her again. His hands are broad and steady at her waist when he helps her up, presses her lightly into the corner of the lift and crowds close so there’s nowhere to fall expect further into him, stays there until they’re both sure she won’t crumble as soon as he lets go. When she glances up from their dust covered boots his gaze isn’t soft, isn’t gentle, but it’s fixed, the same precision he extends to a target, determined and sure. Jyn remembers the tranquility he wore so easily back on Scarif, her palm itches to reach up and take his face in her hands, bring their brows close and hold them together. 

The world all around them shifts—literally, unexpectedly—and there’s a deafening thud overhead just as one of lights explodes like a dying star. The lift begins to plummet. Her stomach leaps into her throat, blocks back a scream, terror and pain bursting to life in her body. Jyn makes an animal noise, something snarled tight inside her chest when Cassian presses his body against hers, traps her injured arm between them as he tries to keep her in place in the corner while his hands lock on to the guardrails protruding from the turbolift walls. 

“Jyn?” He breathes, once the elevator’s stopped again. One of his hands closes around her hip and she nods, a swift jerk of her head that bumps into his shoulder. Her head is swimming and she breathes deep, gets her bearings. He smells of smoke and sweat and she forces her uninjured hand steady as she reaches for her truncheon again. There’s another boom from overhead and he steps back, blaster unholstered and pointed upwards. Jyn leans back against the solidity of the wall and raises her own weapon, steels herself for whatever is coming. There’s a shower of sparks as another one of the light fixtures explodes, and they both hunch, try to shield their faces from the heat that rains down and sputters out on the durasteel flooring. The lights extinguish with a sharp cracking sound, followed by a hollow thud that echoes through the small confines of the lift when one of the ceiling panels crashes downward. Jyn holds her breath. Cassian’s back shifts in front of her, obscuring her view as he obscures _her_ from view. 

“You two are almost as bad as me.” Chirrut says before dropping down from the hole in the ceiling. Jyn leans around Cassian’s side to look at him. There’s a tear in one of the folds of his robes, but he smiles as easily as he does when he joins them for a meal in the mess hall. Overhead there’s a decidedly unimpressed snort. Baze has come to their rescue as well.

“We’ve cleared the way back to the ship, Captain.” Chirrut says, “Though unfortunately there was no getting the doors open without killing you both so we’ve had to improvise. If you will—” He gestures upward towards the hole in the ceiling. “It’s only a short climb.” 

It should be more embarrassing, how much help she requires to hoist herself out of the opening, but Cassian and Chirrut help her up and Baze grips her with strong but careful hands, steady her on the top of the turbolift while Chirrut and Cassian follow after. True to Chirrut’s word it isn’t much of a climb, their lift stuck between floors, the sliding doors that open out into the hall pried apart and jammed open by Chirrut’s staff less than three feet overhead. Baze goes first, crawls back out into the hallway with a grace that still catches Jyn off guard whenever she sees it firsthand (she thinks of Baze as a hammer, blunt-force and unstoppable momentum, but he’s cut from the same cloth as Chirrut, quiet and steady and sure in his body. A guardian inside a hard shell of armor). He gives them the all clear and then Jyn follows, propped up by Cassian and gripping the ledge of the open doorway as tightly as she can with her uninjured hand. It’s impossible to wiggle her way out of the turbolift shaft without upsetting her arm and something pulls unhappily in her shoulder and leg as Baze helps her to her feet. “Go.” Cassian says before he’s even cleared the hallway himself. “Just in case.” Baze says, taking Jyn’s hand in his own in order to curl her fingers into the holster at his hip. He leads the way with Chirrut falling into place behind her and Cassian at the rear (Jyn glances back, eyes slipping from the empty hallway to Cassian more often than she should. The world trembles intermittently beneath her boots.) 

They make slow progress but thankfully don’t actually encounter any troopers, manage to clear the facility, its wheezing sirens and flashing emergency lights, without incident. Jyn loses track of time, one hall blending into another, and then another until they’re back outside, marching into the densely-forested night-landscape of this backwater moon they’ve been sent to. Everything is painted orange by the fire still blazing on the upmost levels of the compound, a torch light illuminating the forest at their backs until the trees start growing so closely together there’s nothing but the dark grey-blue light trickling through the thick treetops. They walk in a disjointed line, their footfalls dampened by the soft dirt and new-born grass that’s begun cropping up in the wake of a long winter. Jyn’s head aches on her tired shoulders. A small unguarded part of her begins to miss the green soil scent that’s so heavy in the air even as she prepares herself for their return to Hoth in all its frigid, frozen splendor. 

(Stumbling gracelessly through the forest with Chirrut and Cassian at her back, fingers still curled into the holster at Baze’s side, Jyn concedes the company makes it bearable.)

Bodhi is waiting for them at the ship, nervous and tense until he recognizes them by the thin pale light that spills out of the cargo door. “Jyn?” He asks before anything else and Jyn sidesteps Baze’s massive frame, gives Bodhi a small grin that makes her lip sting. “Still here.” She says, and the words aren’t any clearer than they were earlier, still soft as wet clay in her mouth. Whatever Bodhi sees upsets him but he doesn’t dawdle, returns to the cockpit before Cassian even gives an order for their departure. “Strap in.” He says shortly, leaves her to Baze and Chirrut who see her to what passes for an infirmary aboard the small freighter they were assigned for this mission.

“There’s nothing here for the bone.” Baze says apologetically, peeling a bacta patch free and carefully adhering it to the wound on Jyn’s head. “For the pain.” Chirrut says, tapping one of the vials in the medkit, and she doesn’t fight either of them when Baze holds up the hypo-syringe. It’s cold against the side of her neck, goes off with a soft pop. Jyn sits on the uncomfortable bench seat and accepts the prick of the needle piercing her skin, the tingling numbness of medication that comes after. When she lets her eyes slip shut this time no one stops her, takes the sight of Chirrut’s tranquil smile and Baze’s familiar brand of gruff concern with her into the dark. “You scared him back there.” Chirrut says bluntly, and Jyn tips her head towards the sound of his voice. 

She can’t really remember what happened after the explosion, came to with her arm a pulsing pain and her head a mess, blood on her face and in her mouth, her whole body a single throbbing ache. She remembers Cassian, leaning over her, hands on her face and voice desperate, urgent, demanding her to get up. She’s never done well with orders—not after her parents ordered her to run and Saw Guerra ordered her to stay, both just different forms of leaving her behind—but she hadn’t been able to disobey the desperation in his voice when he asked her to move. 

It never crosses her mind that he would have left her, even if stormtroopers had been pouring in from every direction, even if the fire had been licking at his back. He’s Cassian Andor and she’s Jyn Erso and the galaxy has decreed they’re destined to die together. He knows that as well as she does, and that she realizes, too little too late and too much like her, that is why Cassian asked her to stay on base. Because it’s become obvious to them both that she’ll take a blow meant for him if it means she can spare him, and that it’ll kill him anyway.

This is what they don’t talk about, the words for what they mean to one another too big to fit into the space between them. (Saw always warned her of this, of loyalty to something other than the cause. Perhaps that is why he left her behind, the only kindness he knew how to spare her. War does not breed soft people, this much is true for Cassian and Jyn. They’ve gone without it long enough not to miss it, but loyalty runs deep in them both. There will always be danger in this brand of devotion.)

“I won’t apologize.” She says, fuzzy with pain and medication, the ache in her arm dulled to a deep, unrelenting throb beneath her skin. Baze’s heavy hand lands on her knee, presses over what will be an impressive bruise hidden under her clothes. The reassurance of the touch is worth the pain. “Let her rest.” He says, voice firm but not unkind, and the ship whirs with the familiar buzzing song that signals a jump to hyperspace, bulkhead shivering as they leave the green backwater moon behind them. Exhaustion creeps over her. “You shouldn’t meddle.” Baze says, voice warped by nonexistent distance, the dark behind Jyn’s eyelids growing thicker and thicker. “Oh, they’re nearly there themselves.” Chirrut answers glibly, shoulder solid under Jyn’s head when she loses the ability to hold herself upright. “What’s a bit of extra help?”

Baze’s response is lost to the fogbank of sleep that rolls out over Jyn. Her dreams are quiet and rain-damp, made up of the green-blue ocean that lapped at the coastline of her parents’ farmlands, the terrain picturesque and silent. The water is cold where it rolls over her bare feet, pale and defenseless, but she doesn’t mind it. In her dream she teaches Cassian how to pick the best of the flat black rocks that litter the seaside, the same way her mother did, guides his wrist with her fingers as he cants his hand back and lets the stone fly loose. They watch it skip until it disappears in the distance. They never see it sink. 

When she wakes up its to Bodhi’s face leaning close, dark eyes deep in study. “C’mon,” he says, hands careful when he helps her to her feet. “The others have gone to debrief but you’re expected in medical within the hour.”

“I’ve been given permission to carry you if necessary.” Kaytoo says, suspiciously close to cheerful, undoubtedly aware of how unhappy Jyn is with the prospect of being carried by anyone anywhere. 

“I think I can manage on my own.” Her legs feel steadier when she stands and she sends a quick thanks out into the universe for that fact alone, though her pace is still slower than she’d like. Hoth is made up of slick, secretive patches of ice where puddles have frosted over in the halls, snow crunching under the soles of their boots. Jyn misses the feel of soil under her feet.

Bodhi keeps up a quiet stream of chatter at her side the entire way, Kaytoo lumbering after them, a constant shadow they couldn’t hope to lose even if they wanted to. They get a few stares from passing soldiers, but that could easily be because they make an odd-looking group—Bodhi in his tan coveralls and Kaytoo towering over them both. Jyn is still covered in soot and dust and dried blood, arm cradled to her chest, blinking more than strictly required under the searing lights. They hardly look like heroes now, if they ever look the part. 

Bodhi sits at the end of her bed in medical while a med droid sets up a quick-seal splint for her. There’s another injection of painkillers after, this one less well received than the first. Her concussion is mild enough now that she isn’t required to stay, but she’s given orders to remain off duty for the remainder of the day. “Report back at 0600 hours for a secondary examination.” The med droid intones, sending them both away. The splint is bulky around her arm, a prickly stinging feeling radiating into her arm as the splint does its work. Bodhi helps her maneuver her arm into the sling the droid left for her on the bedside and secures it around her neck. “There.” He says, grin reassuring, warm palm closing over the nape of her neck for a moment. (The longer they know each other the more she knows that Bodhi never needed her father, knows the choice to defect, to resist, to fight, that’s been in him all along, wrapped in the kindness and warmth no war will ever take from him. That is who Bodhi is.)

When she thanks him something dangerously earnest slips into her voice, and her throat tightens around the simple words. Bodhi blinks at her, owlish and startled, eyes going damp before he blinks again and clears his throat. “Try not to get yourself killed next time. Yeah? It’s hard to argue on your behalf if you’re going to go around getting yourself blown up.” 

Jyn laughs, a weak trembling sound, wants to say something about needing his luck with renegade grenades, but she catches sight of the scar tissue webbing across the backs of his hands, shiny and pale. The words get crushed on the roof of her mouth. “I’ll do better next time.” She says instead, half a promise, reaches out with her good hand to squeeze at Bodhi’s arm. It’s hard not to smile at the look he gives her. He pats her arm. “Right. Make sure you do. For all our sakes. You know, before Cassian loses all his hair.”

The drugs make it easy to laugh. _Bodhi_ makes it easy to laugh. So she does, leans against his side for a quick second before the droid comes back to shoo them out of medical. There are more than enough soldiers in need of a bed. 

Bodhi and Kaytoo escort Jyn to her quarters, but only Bodhi bids her farewell at the door. “I am responsible for ensuring you rest adequately to aid in your timely recovery.” Kaytoo says when she fixes him a look. He stations himself outside her quarters like a giant metal guard dog. She doesn’t need to ask who issued the order. Bodhi doesn’t bother hiding his amusement, “You sort of owe him one.” He says unhelpfully, leaving her after a quick one-armed hug—Bodhi is full of fidgety burst of movement that catch her off guard more often than not, but his affection is warm and gentle and kind, leaves Jyn feeling tender all over—and an overly stern-faced order that she rest. 

“Well. Rest then.” Kaytoo says once they’re alone. “I will keep watch, though it sounds boring.” Jyn blames the drugs for finding comfort in the statement, touches her palm to the cool metal exterior of Kay’s barreled frame before she slips inside the narrow confines of her room. It isn’t much with its single bunk fixed against the barely insulated wall, sparse and too brightly lit, but it is hers, more than she’s had to her name in more than a decade. 

Jyn turns the lights off, navigates the space by the light of her datapad. She fumbles at her bloodied clothing—the shirt’s ruined, the sleeve split open by the med droid—and it’s only the freezing temperatures on Hoth that keep her from slipping half naked beneath the blankets. Instead she struggles her way into an oversized shirt that’s made its way into her drawer, the sleeve loose enough to fall over the splint, crawls into bed and pulls the blankets all the way over her head to block out the light of her datapad screen. For all her exhaustion, she can’t get comfortable on the mattress, cold sinking into her marrow and pain pooling in her joints. Jyn rolls on her side to elevate some of the soreness in her back, though her knees hurt when she folds them towards her stomach. Her splinted arm hangs heavy over her side. Her breath puffs damp and warm against her face, and Jyn counts her breathes, one after another, forces her muscles loose one by one. 

She lies still and imagines Kaytoo standing just outside her door, Bodhi ambling down a frozen corridor, wrapped in every sweater, jacket, and scarf he’s accumulated since they arrived on Hoth months ago. She pictures Chirrut and Baze in the armory, Baze worrying at Chirrut’s staff to ensure it remains in pristine condition after its impromptu performance as a doorstop. She exhales and pictures Cassian, standing at attention in Draven’s office, reporting out on their mission. The intel they gathered, the information bank they destroyed. He’ll have to report her injury. She worries her tongue over the cut on the inside of her lip. It barely stings now.

Next time it might not be Cassian asking her to stay behind. It might not even be a request. 

(Jyn hasn’t cared for orders in years.)

Sleep carries her away before she’s ready to let go of the worry sprouting up inside her, and she drifts on a dreamless current, the dark all-encompassing and gently warming, it carries her forward for an interminable amount of time. She wakes up to the gentle rustle of a blanket being shaken out, feels it settle over her, light as leaves falling from their branches. The blanket under her nose smells like the same nondescript detergent everything here smells like, even Cassian, when he leans closer, smells of the hard yellow soap distributed among the soldiers, clean but unremarkable. She must stink in comparison, stale with sweat and crusted with blood, but she hadn’t had the energy to even jump beneath the sonic when she’d arrived back. With her luck she would have slipped and broken her other arm if she’d tried. 

She makes a soft humming sound, more a greeting than a question.

“You alright?” Cassian asks, bending over her at the side of the bunk. His voice is soft as the light reflected off untouched snow after a storm clears. “I’m fine.” She answers, voice a rasp in the quiet. There’s a dim light emanating from somewhere on the floor, washes his face in shadows and pale yellow light. “You?” 

“Alright.” He says with an efficient tilt of his chin. She shifts, presses herself against the wall at her back, part of this carefully choreographed dance they’ve become caught in since Scarif. He doesn’t follow tonight, misses his step entirely and remains standing at the side of the bed instead. _He’ll leave_ , comes an old worry from inside, _he’ll go_. Jyn abandons the safety of familiarity, pushes past the stagnating fear of rejection she’s held on to this long and says, “Come to bed, Cassian.”

She catches him off guard and that pleases her, determined to commit the surprise that flashes across his features to memory. “I won’t ask again.” She says, and maybe he hears more than she means, because his features harden, his voice determined when he says, “You won’t have to.”

She thinks to apologize, or argue, tired and still hurting, but it’s his turn to surprise her, rising out of his crouch with a grimace. The light casts odd shaped shadows on the ceiling as he moves, shedding his outermost jacket before he sits on the far edge of the bed to remove his boots. Jyn watches his shoulders shift under the material of his shirt, the line of his spine curving away from her. He stretches out beside her, movements stiff with what she suspects is mostly cautious regard for her injured arm, though the stilted breath that punches out of him when she places her hand against his side tells her she isn’t the only one still nursing hurts caused by the explosion. “Did you see the medics?” She asks and he ignores the question in favor of reaching over the side of the bed to fiddle with whatever he left illuminated on the floor. The room goes dark without warning, but he comes back to her, lies fully at her side. 

“You’re starting to sound like Kay.” He says gruffly and Jyn huffs in faux offense, her uninjured hand coming to rest against his hip. He doesn’t tense under the touch so she leaves her hand there, curls her fingertips into the nearest belt loop. It isn’t the most comfortable position but she’s been in worse.

“Bodhi says we deserve each other.” She says, voice small, as though the dark might not be big enough to contain what she needs to say. 

“Bodhi says a lot of things.” Cassian answers, just as careful. 

“Don’t ask me to stay behind again.” Jyn says in return, heart beating furiously, disrupting the lingering tranquility of drug-aided sleep. “I’m with you too,” She wishes the words were smoother, gentler, “All the way.” 

Cassian’s palm is rough over hers, but there’s hesitation in his grip. It’s difficult to maneuver with her bound arm to consider, but she slips one of her legs over his, presses as closely as she can manage. “Jyn—”

“We’re a team aren’t we?” She presses, and maybe in the morning they’ll never speak of this again, but that just makes it all the more important that she say this now. Now and not the next time death comes to call on one or both of them. She was ready to die on Scarif with possibility burning bright inside her, an unattainable almost to be smothered out of existence before it could ever even be. Hasn’t Jyn wasted enough of her life waiting for _something_ to happen.

She remembers the crushing roar of the entire base as the Death Star exploded over Yavin, the weakening of her entire body, heart breaking inside her chest for Alderaan and her father, for Saw Guerra and her mother and Jehda, for Cassian, his shaking fingers clutching at her, her face, her side, mouth unforgiving against hers, her own knuckles aching where they squeezed at his shirt. Tonight she searches for his lips in the dark, feels his exhale against her skin when her mouth touches his. “Jyn?” Her name is a single, searching question, and she kisses him again, and again. The angle is all wrong, his back to her chest, her injured arm between them. It must be terrible on his neck. But he doesn’t stop her. Her skin buzzes all over. “You can’t die without me.” She says stupidly, pressing her face against his. “I won’t allow it.”

Cassian turns, dislodges her leg and rolls towards her so that he’s facing her. His hand comes up, rests on her shoulder, traces the column of her throat, the line of her jaw.

”Jyn.” He says and she tenses, unwilling to hear whatever he has to say, shakes her head stubbornly. “Those aren’t the kinds of decisions we get to make.” He says, one hand smoothing over her side. Jyn’s heart drums inside her veins.

He kisses her chin. “But if I could—” He stops short.

Maybe their story won’t be the happy kind, hardly a fairytale worth repeating. But it can still be theirs and theirs alone. She’ll treasure it, something as precious to her as her dimmest memories of the home she lost, for however long she gets to have it. She'll fight for it, for him, for them. 

This is what they can give each other.

Maybe they do deserve each other. If fate is kind, they might even die together. But until then they can choose one another, again and again, their daily offering. It’s enough, she tells him, mouth soft against his brow. That will be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from e.e. cummings' "if i should sleep with a lady called death"
> 
> Next time, fluffy baby!fic, probably.


End file.
